Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust
by Ainoko Ro-Zu
Summary: After a strange dream, Alex is awoken by Gene to follow up a call from a zoo about a dead staff member. On their way, they come across a body, with disastrous emotional effects on Alex. The team now have to juggle to two cases as well as their feelings.
1. Bloody hell

Alex's damp head throbbed distractingly as she sat in the hot darkness, struggling to concentrate on her surroundings. The collar of her silky, plum-coloured shirt clung to the back of her neck like clingfilm to a wet surface. She could feel her pristinely curled hair, normally shiny and arranged in a careful dark frame around her face, beginning to hang limply in the humidity. She clenched her clammy hands and looked around a little frantically. She could see nothing. A cloying sense of agitation was spreading in her chest as her pulse spend up and her heart hammered deafeningly in her head in rhythm with the throbbing in her temples. She attempted to take deep breaths, but could only manage frenzied gasps.

Was she dreaming? Hallucinating? Was there anything here, in the blackness, which might bring her news of herself? She could be dying…she knew she'd come close to it before, several times. She knew she'd heard talk of giving up on her. The thought of _that _made her heart hammer even faster. She shook her head, screwing up her eyes in anguish. _No._

She raised her head, unclenched her palms. There had to be something here, something she could _use. _Hesitantly, she opened her dry mouth and called out into the humid blackness.

"Hello?" her voice sounded hoarse, and not quite loud enough. She made a weak attempt to clear her throat. "Hello? It's Alex Drake. Am I…alive?"

Nobody answered. No sounds betrayed anything about where she was other than the slight echo in her voice when she spoke, from which her keen analytical skills (constantly turned on these days) deduced that she was in a room, quite large, with few or no soft furnishings.

It was uncomfortably hot. And dark. Or had she gone blind? That would certainly explain the terror that had begun to take hold of her. Alex Drake was not normally afraid of the dark. She hadn't been since she was a very young child. That was what she felt like now; a young child in the dark.

"Mum?" Alex's breath caught in her throat as she heard a voice coming from…somewhere. She couldn't place where. "Mummy?"

"Molly! Molly?" she tried to call out, but she still couldn't manage more than a hoarse, choked whisper.

"Mum, wake up. Will you please wake up? I'm waiting for you to wake up, mum."

"I'm awake! I'm here I promise, please don't-" she broke off, choking. Her throat was raw with the effort of trying to force out more than a whisper.

"Mummy, please-" Molly's voice was suddenly cut off, and Alex was looking at her own reflection in a pair of big, dark shades.

_Bang._

A bullet whistled towards her.

"_BOLLY!"_

Suddenly she was in blackness again, but she was no longer afraid. And no longer dreaming.

Her head had burrowed it's way into the crook of her arm and her face was pressed uncomfortably against the cool, wooden desk she was sitting at. Slumped in her chair, she kept her eyes stubbornly closed. Her head was still throbbing and the gunshot was still reverberating in her ears.

"Listen, Bolly-kecks, you ruddy bloody wake up of yer own free will or my expensive boot will be making contact with your bony arse and you'll have no bloody choice."

D.I. Drake opened her eyes reluctantly. She sat up with a yawn, and mumbled an incoherent apology.

D.C.I Gene Hunt looked down at her stonily. "Sorry, but is the coffee machine bloody broken? No sleeping on the job, Bolls, not on my watch."

"Sorry." She said hoarsely. "I'm a little hung over this morning." Gene looked at her patronizingly.

"Snap. Now move that pointy arse of yours. You and I are going to the zoo." He turned away and strode towards his office. Drake watched discreetly for a moment. He was the most frustrating man she had ever met, but probably also one of the most brilliant. And as little as she wanted to admit it sometimes, she knew that without him the place she was in would be a difficult place in which to survive, regardless of reality. However annoyingly and obscurely, he was always there for her. In a lateral sort of a way, they were close.

She stood up, returned a smile from Shaz ("Al'right, ma'am?"), holstered her gun (she assumed she would need it) and dashed after Gene, who was now striding out the door, his masculinity practically emanating off him in visible waves.

In a flurry of clicking heels, slamming doors and revving engines, they were soon encased in the red, speeding blur that was Gene's Audi Quattro.

"Okay, fill me in." Alex said briskly, looking through the window to fix her hair in the wing mirror.

"Well, dozy-bloody-bolly-kecks, while you had a refreshing little nap, our humble services were called upon regarding some bastard that shot a monkey at London zoo. And a member of staff."

"Anything else? Who was the staff member killed?"

"Sally Vincent. Eighteen years of age, animal lover, tarty sorta type. That's all I could get over the phone."

"Tarty?" D.I. Drake said in a cool voice.

"Sorry, did I offend your precious ears, Bolly?" Hunt said acidly. "I'll rephrase that-"

"Don't bother." Alex snapped. "Why was she a 'tart'?" she gesticulated in the air with her fingers as she said the word.

"Back to finger-waggling, are we? Anyway, how the bloody hell do I know how the mind of a tart operates? I don't bloody know _why_." Gene barked as the Quattro swung dangerously round a corner, causing Alex to have to cling to her seat. "Bet you have more of a bloody clue than me." He added suggestively.

Alex sighed. "Evidently what I meant to ask was 'what were you told that caused you to use such an offensive term'." She snapped. "But it's okay, don't bother answering if it's beyond you-" she broke off with a scream as in a sudden blur and a loud smack, something fell from the sky and landed in a hard collision on the shiny red bonnet of the Quattro, before rolling off and hitting the gravely, off-road ground Gene had been driving so dangerously on.

Gene braked extremely hard and Alex lurched forward in her seat with the sudden, violent movement.

"Shit!" he growled, just as Alex gasped in horror.

The body of a child lay in the middle of the road, a tiny bead of blood dripping from her mouth.

"Bloody hell."


	2. Monkeys aren't apes

**HI THERE! I just realised I haven't really explained very much about this fic…it's the first fanfic I've put online, and OMG you people have been so nice! You have no idea how happy it makes me when I get an e-mail saying someone has subscribed, and when I get reviews my reaction is somewhat similar to how I reacted when I drank two bottles of lucozade alert in a row and then had a cup of really strong coffee (actually, I think there's a warning on the back of those lucozade thingies saying that one should not drink more than one little bottle in a day, because there's SOOO MUUCHHH CAFFEINEE) But yeah you guys make me very happy **

**I've totally gone off topic here. The fic is set sometime in season two. There may be a little Galex. I haven't quite decided. There's a little tiny bit in this chapter, anyway…but only a little. Enjoy **** and keep makin' me happy like ya do **

"Bolls."

"I'm sorry."

"Shh."

"Sorry."

"Shut up!"

"Sorry…"

"Stop sayin' that! And pull yourself together. You've seen dead kids before, Bolly." Gene said, in a tone he might use to scold a child. It didn't suit him. He didn't bother trying to conceal his blatant discomfort at the tears that were streaming down his D.I.'s face.

He had radioed Chris and Ray and set them following up the call from the zoo, and forensics to take the body back to C.I.D., so now he and Alex sat alone in the car. Gene was itching to fire up the Quattro and get investigating, not that he had two cases to solve (not to mention the fact he was itching to get out and hunt down the scum that had caused the dent on the bonnet of his precious car), but he had enough experience with birds (maybe not birds quite like Alex, but birds all the same) to realise that she needed a moment, and possibly an arm around her bony little shoulders, before she recovered from whatever she needed to recover from.

She'd been seemingly fine when the body had fallen (if a little shocked). She'd swung those long, slender legs in their insanely tight jeans out of the Quattro, strode over to the lifeless form of the child (heels clicking, arse swaying) with a business-like expression. But then she'd crouched down to get a better look at the child, and her dark hair, always so pristinely curled, had covered her face. When she brushed it back behind her ears, her face was twisted with pain and there were streaks running down her carefully applied make-up. She'd been a right sight when forensics had arrived; sobbing hysterically in the back of the Quattro, Gene sitting awkwardly beside her.

Gene sighed. "C'mon, Bolls. Don't reduce me to puttin' my arm around your shoulders. We've already got bodies fallin' from the sky. And the Quattro's bloody dented."

"She was so young, Gene." Alex closed her eyes. Gene ran a weary hand down his face.

"C'mere." He grudgingly wrapped his arm around her. A little hesitantly, she leaned against him, tears still dripping down her face. She placed a cautious hand on his chest, and he put his other arm around her as she turned her head and cried quietly into his shirt. He held her until she fell silent. He removed on arm, but allowed the other to remain resting lightly on her shoulders.

"Done?" he asked gruffly.

She sat up straight, make-up slightly smudged, hair slightly ruffled, but otherwise relatively normal looking. She nodded.

"Yep."

"Good. We've got two murders to investigate. Not to mention huntin' down the _bastard _that dropped a body on my car." He got out of the Quattro and inspected the dent in the shiny red bonnet, before climbing in the front. "C'mon Boles. Get in the front. I'm a police officer, not a bloody taxi driver." She smiled reluctantly and got in the front.

"You're wrong; we've got three murders to investigate." She corrected him as he began to drive like a madman. "The monkey."

"Sure you won't go all hormonal on me over the terrible fate the poor little ape suffered?"

"Monkeys aren't apes; they have tails."

"Gorillas have tails. They're bloody apes, aren't they?"

"Gorillas don't have tails.

"Shit."

D.I. Drake found herself smiling once again. She was grateful to Gene for not questioning her about her ridiculous reaction to the dead child. She was grateful to him for knowing that she'd needed his comfort. She was grateful that just by being himself, he could cheer her up.

"Guv?"

"Bolls?"

"Thanks."

"No problem, Bolly. Can't have my D.I. getting' 'er fancy knickers in a twist over children falling from the sky."

Alex snorted. "I suppose not."

"So, Bolls-" he swerved around a corner, narrowly missing a cat, "-still hungover?"

"Not particularly."

"Good. Me neither."

Due to Gene's ever so slightly manic driving, they arrived at the zoo in a matter of minutes. Ray's car was parked outside.

Gene marched into the foyer, Alex clicking behind him in her heels. Gene flashed his I.D. and badge.

"Hello." he said to the miserable-looking, spotty boy behind the counter. "We're 'ere about a dead monkey."

The boy, who looked about sixteen or seventeen, sniffed. "Police are already 'ere. An' it's not just the monkey, mister-"

"I know. How bloody uninformed do you think we are?" Gene snapped.

"We're the rest of their team." Alex explained, gently. "Would you mind taking us to the crime scene? We're here regarding the death of Sally Vincent." The boy looked at her warily, but nodded and slid out from behind the counter. They followed him through the eerily quiet zoo.

"Bit quiet for a zoo." Commented Gene.

"The animals all got moved to a livestock storage place, 'bout 3 miles from 'ere. 'Cause of the murder, y'know." The boy muttered.

"Isn't that hazardous to their health?" Alex asked. "It can't be anything like their natural habitat." Gene raised an eyebrow at her.

"Bless their poor souls." He muttered, mockingly. "Out of their natural habitat while there's a killer on the loose."

"Dunno." Said the boy shortly, leading them into a cavernous room entitled 'The Monkey House', where they were greeted by Ray and Chris. Chris stood awkwardly by the body of a lifeless, brunette girl with blood-stained clothes, whilst Ray had his arm around a slender, wailing bleach-blonde girl. He nodded with faux sympathy as she wept hysterically.

"…m-my best friend! I-I just c-came in an' she were lyin; 'ere!"

"Hello, Guv. Boss –ma'am, I mean. Ma'am." Chris greeted them.

"Get yer hands off me sister, copper!" Alex and Gene's spotty guide wrenched the blonde away from Ray and dragged her away before he that time to respond.

Ray stared after them. "Cheeky little shit!"

Alex sighed. "Have you called for someone to bring this body back to C.I.D.?"

Chris nodded.

"Oy, Boles. I pull rank on you, or had you forgotten?" Gene glared at Alex. "Ray, fill me in. Bolls, Chris, go and talk to them."

Alex nodded submissively and sauntered off.


End file.
